It's not funny anymore how many problems exist because we think and act on absolutes. At a risk of invoking Godwin's law, you'd think that this lesson was learned after the second world war.
But sadly, absolutism is too ingrained in our language. From simple phrases such as "Father knows best", "White men can't jump" and "An ex is an ex for a reason" we somehow deduce that these absolutes must be true. 1 or 0, true or false.
Reality is ALWAYS more complex than you imagine it to be, though we struggle to constrain this complexity with language that imposes absolutes on it.
The worst thing is that actually knowing this does not make you any more immune to it. The only thing one can do is remain stoic in the face of the universe and cultivate an attitude that can only be described as the "Let's see what this is." of general semantics.
But gods, the evil this absolutism imparts. Us-them thinking, terrorism scares, muslim scares, killings in oslo, forcing of stereotypical behaviour, the inability to see beyond preconceptions and worst of all: ignoring and basically saying "NO" to a scary but beautiful complex world that is more surprising than you could ever even imagine in lieu of living a simple, safe and predictable life.
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